American History Tellers - 1865 versus 2018 and Why History Matters | 7

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

We live in historic times, but how do they compare to that other tumultuous era of American history — 1865 and the years following President Lincoln’s death and the end of The Civil War? Steven Walters, writer of Lindsay Graham’s new scripted podcast “1865,” joins to discuss the thrilling story of how our country put itself back together again and brought Lincoln’s killers to justice. Plus, a preview of what’s to come on “American History Tellers” in 2019.You can listen to new weekly episodes of “1865” exclusively on Stitcher Premium. For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com/1865 and use promo code ‘1865’.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history. your story. Today, as I record this, it's January 1st, 2019. So first, a very happy new year to all of you listening. I wish you all twice as much joy and happiness as you've enjoyed in 2018 and half as much hardship. Additionally, in just a few days, on January 3rd, we will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of this podcast, American History Tellers. I can't tell you how proud I am of this show and grateful for its enthusiastic reception by listeners from

across the globe. Your kind words in reviews, emails, on Facebook and Twitter made last year a very memorable one for me. And I know I speak for everyone on the American History Tellers team when I say we are eager to bring you many more stories from American history told as well and accurately as we can. That team includes some remarkable people who work very hard to put on this show each week. So a heartfelt thanks to Derek Behrens, Emma Cortland-Cullens, George Lavender, Marshall Louis, Katie Long, Jenny Lauer, Dorian Marina, and of course Hernan Lopez and all the rest at Wondery. And so on today's show, in this spirit of celebration, I'm very happy to be speaking with my friend and collaborator, Stephen Walters, about our newest podcast, 1865.

Imagine it's mid-evening, April 14th, 1865. The Civil War isn't fully over. General Lee surrendered Grant only days ago, and fighting still continues. You're attending the 1,000th and final performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater. It's a raucous comedy, and you've been laughing all night. But halfway through the second scene of the third act, as you and the rest of the audience bellow loudly, a shot is fired. There's a commotion in the box above you. Two men tussle, and one is viciously stabbed by the other. The man wielding the knife leaps out of the box and onto the stage, shouting. The violence is so shocking that you don't immediately realize that slumped over in the box above you, gripped tightly by his

wailing wife Mary, is President Abraham Lincoln, shot in the head. All of us know this story, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. But few of us know that these terrible events of April 14th, 1865, are just the beginning of perhaps one of the most tense and charged periods of American history. 1865, the podcast, is an audio drama that tells the story of what happened after the assassination. Stephen Walters is the co-creator and writer of 1865 and joins me to talk about that year and its importance then and now. We recorded Stephen at the Wondery offices in Los Angeles. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House.

Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger follow kill list wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to kill list and more exhibit c true crumb shows like morbid early and ad free right now by joining wandry plus Many, many years diving headfirst into, you know, the history surrounding 1865 is at times shocking and at times so relevant to what's happening today that it seems like it's complete invention. But in reality, it's not like any good piece of historical fiction.

This is part spinning a yarn and part historically accurate. What was it about this particular year, 1865, that attracted you to this project? You know, this story sort of found its way to Eric and I. It wasn't something that we were really looking for. It actually dates all the way back to our college days when Eric and I were theater kids at Baylor University. And in our theater history class, we were assigned the 19th century and we were given this subject. We had a long list of subjects to choose from. And as Eric and I quickly found, it was like, well, not that many exciting things from a theater perspective happened in the 19th

century. And the name John Wilkes Booth kind of jumped off the list. And from there, we wrote what I describe as being a very bad play about John Wilkes Booth. It was essentially a glorified fact sheet. But out of that play, a really great play was later born. Ten years later, a theater company in Dallas called Second Thought Theater received a grant, the Donna Wilhelm Family Foundation grant, to develop Booth into a real play. And from that real play came

1865, a narrative audio drama produced, executive produced by Lindsey Graham and Airship. But John Wilkes Booth is not the central character of 1865 like the play. That's right. Our main character is Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's war secretary.

Now, we were introduced to him just recently in our series on the political parties. He fights to bring Lincoln's killer to justice, but also really to just keep the country together and in the direction that Lincoln had pointed it. I'm going to play a short clip of 1865, the podcast, where we hear Edwin Stanton addressing a crowd of well-to-do who's who of Washington. And we'll pick up after that. Thank you. Thank you for the kind introduction. It's a rare occasion I'm asked to speak in front of the who's who of Washington City. I am honored and I promise to be brief. a boy, my father made me swear an oath to fight slavery till my dying day. Throughout my life, I've done my best to live up to that promise. Lord knows I have not always been perfect. If you don't believe me, you just ask my wife. But perhaps no one knew my flaws better than Mr. Lincoln. In the history of this country, no two men were ever more utterly unlike than Mr. Lincoln. In the history of this country, no two men were ever more utterly

unlike than Mr. Lincoln and myself. Indeed, when I first met him all the way back in 1855, I did not care for him. I was in need of a young lawyer to help me with the case. Looking back, I'm not certain why I chose to hire Mr. Lincoln. I suppose it might have had something to do with the fact that he was cheap. But as the old saying goes, with lawyers, you get what you pay for. I thought Mr. Lincoln a dreadful litigator, a useless man, and an even bigger fool. It was not the first time in my career that I was wrong. And it would not be the last time I would underestimate Mr. Lincoln.

Gentlemen, John Wilkes Booth is dead. But the cause which he represents did not die with Mr. Booth. Indeed, his actions have stoked the fires of rebellion all across the South and given hope to those who opposed the cause of liberty for which Mr. Lincoln gave his life. The battle between the states is over, but the war for the soul of our nation is just beginning. In waging this war, we must be merciless. I leave you tonight with the words of Mr. Lincoln himself. If ever the destruction of our nation must spring up amongst us, it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

Let us heed his warning. God bless Mr. Lincoln, and God preserve and keep our sacred union. So in this short segment, Stanton is addressing the crowd, and as he mentions, they had just apprehended and killed John Wilkes Booth. You would think that this is a moment for celebration of the country, and it was. But for Stanton, it was just the beginning of the battle. Can you tell us a little bit about him and why he was the center of the story? Well, as we set out to research the subject of John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, I always say that it was as if Stanton demanded from the pages of history that the story be about him. When you read the history of the 1860s, particularly the events surrounding the assassination of Lincoln, Stanton's name is everywhere.

And I think that the reason that Stanton isn't relishing in this moment of victory and that the reason the battle is just beginning for him is I think what Stanton saw in the days after Lincoln was killed is that although the war on the battlefield was over, the war of ideas, the war for the soul of the future of the country was still at stake. And he really, I believe, saw himself as the man who was given the responsibility through this tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's death of preserving Abraham Lincoln's legacy. And so I think that's really what Stanton set out to do, albeit imperfectly. It's interesting in that speech, he makes reference to his relationship with Abraham Lincoln. It was a very complicated relationship. In 1855, they did work on a case together. Stanton did not like Lincoln. He did think he was an imbecile. And seven years later, when he was working in the war department, he felt the same way. And yet, the two men came together and found common ground,

I think, both over their shared ideals about equality and about what the future of the country should be, but also in personal tragedy around the same time that Lincoln lost his son, Willie Stanton lost his son. And tragedy was something that followed Edwin Stanton around his entire life. He lost his father when he was very young. He lost a daughter, Lucy, his son, James, his brother. It seemed to be this looming presence in his life. And I think he felt personally responsible in a way for Abraham Lincoln's death and certainly felt responsible for taking up that mantle, charging into the future We are in the midst of a civil war. Edwin Stanton was a Democrat for the largest portion of his political career, but then switched and became a Republican who, at this period, was a brand new party. Do you know much about the Republicans? Well, I know that they were sort of the Whigs part two, right? I think that they were a party that was in large part founded on principles of abolition. And Edwin Stanton was certainly right there at the epicenter of that conversation. You know, it's interesting, the 1860s, it's a period of time for a lot of firsts in American history, right?

Like we have the first president assassinated in the wake of the first and hopefully only civil war. You know, we have the first woman executed by the United States government. We have the first impeachment trial of a sitting president. And in this time of all these new things happening, including, you know, the Republican Party coming to power, Edwin Stanton is sort of right there at the epicenter of all of it. And that's one of the many things that sort of, you know, drew me to him and made me want to tell his story and, you know, create 1865. Through the Civil War, Edwin Stanton is working with, perhaps sometimes begrudgingly, Lincoln, both Republicans though, and both sharing an ideology. Upon Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson is now president. He was picked on Lincoln's ticket as a means to bridge the gap between North and South because Johnson was a

Southern Democrat. But this, when he becomes president, poses a very big problem for Stanton. What are some of the main issues that Stanton faced and feared? Well, I think the main difference in the most reductive way to explain it possible between Johnson and Stanton is that Johnson is what we would call in modern day a racist, a bigot. He did not support the cause of the freedmen. He did not want political or civil equality. And Stanton, of course, did. It was something that from the time he was very young, his father was a Quaker.

His father was an abolitionist. He ran a station on the Underground Railroad out of Stanton's childhood home. This was very much a part of the fabric of who Stanton was. And so these two men were truly diametrically opposed over an issue that on both sides of the coin, both for Johnson and for Stanton, was one of the key fundamental values that they held. And so certainly they did not find a lot of common ground on that question. And then also the question of what to do with the Southern states, right? I mean, we just fought this civil war where the Confederacy has now surrendered. Well, the question is, well, what are we going to do now? Are we going to be lenient to the

Southern governments? Are we going to allow the South to rejoin the Union and reclaim their seat at the table? Or are we going to punish them for their secession and for this bloody war that they waged against the Union? And certainly on that question as well, Johnson and Stanton fell on very opposite sides of the coin. Stanton wanted very punitive policies as it relates to Reconstruction. Johnson wanted to pardon the South. That desire to pardon the South wasn't necessarily pure. You know, there was political expediency involved. Certainly the South rejoining the Union made a border state, a man like Johnson who's popular in the border states, a man like Johnson who's from the South, it certainly gave him more political power because, as you said, Johnson

was sort of a compromised choice for vice president, right? Lincoln picked him because he would be popular in the border states and with the Southern people. So it's a very, very complicated time, these weeks, months, and years after the war ends and after Lincoln's assassination. And that drama between Stanton and Johnson over, you know, the very future of our country sort of climaxes with the first impeachment proceeding in the United States' history. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered

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But he also had a very darkly pragmatic view of government and his particular power. I've heard you compare Stanton to Dick Cheney for this reason. He faced a national tragedy and then had to take the reins. Why do you make the comparison? I think I make the comparison because, you know, in the moments after 9-11 happened, Dick Cheney had to make some very difficult choices. You know, George Bush was in Florida. He was sitting in a classroom. He was not in the situation room with the rest of his top advisors. And Dick Cheney made fame, infamously made the decision that if a plane flew into the airspace

over the White House, that he authorized our government to shoot the plane down, even if there were civilians on board. And of course, that's a bit of an imperious choice on his part, because, you know, assuming the power that is not his, because of course, the vice president is not imbued with the power to make a decision like that. And yet Cheney did. It was what the situation demanded in his mind. Similarly, in the days and weeks after Lincoln is assassinated, Edwin Stanton does a very similar thing. He declares martial law. He basically runs the country for the 14 days after Lincoln is killed. He presides over the largest manhunt in US history to bring John

Wilkes Booth and his conspirators to justice. He arrests folks and holds them in violation of their rights of habeas corpus without naming charges. And he does it all in the name of keeping the country safe. And so I kind of think that there's an interesting question to be asked inside of the character of Edwin Stanton and a man like Dick Cheney. It's like, well, do the ends justify the means? When you make difficult, tough choices in the name of the greater good, what is the cost of that? And does the cost outweigh the good that is done in the process of making those choices? I think it's just a really palpable question. And certainly in a post 9-11 world, I think it's a

question that will really resonate with Americans today. Speaking of Americans today, most will know the story of Lincoln's assassination, and some more will know about the Reconstruction period that followed. But most will not, and I certainly didn't, know the many outrageous facts of the story. I mean, the first one being the strange relationship between John Wilkes Booth and Lucy Hale. Can you just tell us a little bit about that relationship and maybe some of the other surprises that you found in your research? Yeah, the truth is always stranger than fiction, isn't it? And that's one of the historical facts that when it was brought to me, I thought, I think like you, Lindsay,

when Eric Archilla first pointed this out to me, I thought, there's no way that's true. Well, it turns out that Lucy Lambert Hale, who is a high society daughter of a famous abolitionist senator named John Parker Hale, who's also one of the founders of the Republican Party, it turns out that she's betrothed, you might say, to Robert Lincoln, or at the very least, that Robert Lincoln, the president's son, is trying to marry her, but that she's secretly having an affair with none other than John Wilkes Booth, the man who would later assassinate Robert Lincoln's father. And when I found out that piece of history, I just thought, there's no way. There's no way this is true. And yet it is true. And even more mysteriously, in a time where Edwin Stanton essentially arrested anyone and everyone that so much as knew the name John Wilkes Booth, Lucy Hale is never arrested. She's never taken to the Montauk prison ship and put in chains.

She is able to walk the streets a free woman. about that love triangle between Lucy, John, and Robert, and how Stanton interacted with that love triangle. Because I had to believe that as the Secretary of War, a man who was essentially in charge of everything, I had to believe that he knew the truth about it. And I had to believe that he made the decision to essentially cover it up. It's a fascinating bit of history. And then, you know, the other piece of history that I'm just shocked by, and I'm still, uh, conflicted about, and I still wish I had more answers, uh, to, to these questions, but Stanton really believed that Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy was responsible for the attacks against our country on April 14th. And as I stepped deeper and deeper into the history of all this, there were just a lot of things that I assumed to be true. You know, I think the average person probably thinks that John Wilkes Booth was a lone gunman, right? Well, it turns out he wasn't. It turns out that Booth had a gang of conspirators. It turns out that Lincoln wasn't even the only government official

to be attacked on April 14th. The secretary of state was also attacked by one of Booth's conspirators. He was stabbed almost mortally. I mean, secretary of state's William Seward, he nearly died that night. There was also an attacker who allegedly went after Andrew Johnson. And there's even some facts that point to Edwin Stanton being a target as well. So it's just, you know, the story is always a little bit more complicated than we think it is. But Edwin Stanton really truly believed that Jefferson Davis was responsible, that the Confederacy was responsible, and that by extension, the South as a whole was responsible. And in the military tribunal of Booth's conspirators, Stanton really set out to make that case to the American people because Stanton believed that, hey, listen, if the South

is responsible for these attacks, then a policy of leniency, which is what Andrew Johnson wanted, a policy of amnesty or pardon to the South is impossible. And so this question of, well, was Stanton right or was he wrong, is one of those things that we just won't, we can't ever know the answer to. Certainly there's evidence that points in both directions, him being right and him being wrong, but it's just one of those mysteries that we're never going to know the real truth of. One of the fascinating things about 1865 is the use of actual historical documents when it's appropriate. The podcast is littered with actual telegrams and full of language that we would expect from today's editorials. They are no better than anything you would hear on Huffington Post or Fox News or whichever side of it.

How do you think everyday people were reacting to these events and what role did the press play? Yeah, you know, like today, the press played a very divisive role at times. You know, certainly there were publications that were just as, you know, quote unquote partisan as many of our news sources are today. And there was just a lot of misinformation out there. Of course, they didn't have social media. You can imagine if they had Twitter, how much worse it would have been. But, you know, it's fascinating because, you know, things spread word of mouth. So you can imagine how conflicted the information that was swirling about was. And a lot of these newspapers were reporting on rumor and conjecture. And so you go back and you read these source documents and it's, it's incredible, um, just how difficult it is to, to suss out what the truth actually was, you know? Um, I also think

that, you know, the, the concept of fake news, uh, of course it's been, you know, codified into history, uh, in recent years, but the idea of it has been around as long as newspapers have been around. Um, it's, it's fascinating. You read the conservative-leaning papers, and they have one very distinct perspective. And then you read the liberal, progressive-leaning newspapers of the day, and they completely disagree. It's just, it's absolutely fascinating. And in the case of, you know, let's use Lucy Hale as an example.

You know, we know that Lucy went to the newspapers, several different publications, and she made a statement saying that she was asking for exonerating evidence for her fiance, John Wilkes Booth. Well, very quickly after Lucy makes that statement, that same newspaper retracts that story and essentially calls it fake news. And then once that newspaper retracted the story, a whole bunch of other newspapers retracted the story. And then there was another story that ran from her father saying that there was no relationship between them, that they just shared a dance on a ballroom and that it was much ado about nothing. And so you think it's like, okay,

well, what was the truth of that? Did the newspapers act too quickly by publishing Lucy's story? Did they not do enough to verify whether it was true or not? And did that add to sowing further seeds of discord in an already divided country? I don't know. It's really tough to say, but it's certainly very fascinating to look at the parallels between the newspapers back then and the newspapers today. So even if contemporary sources are disagreeing on some of the facts on the ground, certainly also the history books that are written also contradict. What was your process in taking and assimilating this history into a scripted series? Well, the first thing Eric and I did is wherever possible, we went to source documents. And a good example of that is the transcriptions from the actual military tribunal

became a very primary source for us. Also, Navy Secretary Gideon Wells kept a diary, which really gives us a day-by-day sort of look inside Andrew Johnson's administration. Of course, both of those things are colored by the circumstances surrounding those things being written, right? Like in the tribunal, we don't actually know that the witnesses are all telling the truth. We can assume that, but we can't prove it. And in the case of Gideon Wells, certainly Wells is another guy who by modern standards, we would call a bigot, a racist. And so you have to color everything that Gideon Wells says. I mean, you have to imagine rather that everything that Gideon Wells says is colored by his own bias, his own political worldview. But where possible,

we went to the primary sources to sort of construct the basic narrative of what happened. And then very much like you would do if you're creating a TV show, we threw it up on a big board, we structured it out, we broke it up into the number of episodes that we wanted and slowly but surely kind of wrestled the history to the ground. But the guiding principle behind all of it

was really this question about, in the face of a monster, do we make a monster out of ourselves in pursuit of justice? You know, the ends versus means of it all. And when, you know, Eric and I, we come from very different backgrounds, politically speaking. It's, you know, I think that that created some nice balance, both in our research, in our interpretation of the facts, and in our execution of this story. And, you know, even though we didn't always agree about everything, what we definitely always agreed on was the guiding principle of this question of the ends versus the means.

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It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Now, you've written for TV. You've written for us, American History Tellers, the portions of the Andrew Jackson series and the Space Race series. And, uh, you are, we just finished up the, uh,

Iran Contra series on my other podcast, American scandal. So you're, you're, you're, you're deeply invested in writing about history now, but that's not really your entire gig. You're just a writer and a good one.

So thank you. Um, thank you. But what is it about history itself that draws you as a subject? A good friend of mine once said something to me. His name is Brad Sham, and he's actually the radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys. I'll actually plug him. He's got a podcast called Then and Now, which is really, really great. It's if you're a football fan or a sports fan, it's definitely worth a listen.

But Brad said something to me one time that really stuck with me. He said, you know, you never know the outcome of the story when you're standing in the middle of it. And I think that's the thing that really draws me to history is that, you know, in our day-to-day lives, we don't see the forest through the trees. We don't see that the world in which we live

is the consequence of decades and decades of decisions that were made by other folks. And that the decisions that we make, especially when we find ourselves in positions of power, and the decisions that we make as voters and as participants in our democracy are shaping and defining the world for generations to come. And I think that as I look around at what's happening in the world today, politically and otherwise, I just have a curiosity to understand how it is that we got to where we are today, good, bad, or indifferent. When times are great, I'm curious about it. And when times are tough, I'm curious about it. And one of the wonderful things about history is that to me, it's a journey. It's not

a destination. You're never going to find a satisfactory answer. You're never going to actually be able to piece the full picture together. But in the process of doing it, in the process of finding all these clues, you do get a clearer picture of the world that you live in and you get a clearer picture of the things that happened that made that world come to pass. I'm just endlessly fascinated by it, the parallels between things that have happened in our country. I know it's a little bit of a nerd alert to say, but it's like Battlestar Galactica. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. If you could teach the American public one period of history that

they would comprehensively understand and make any lessons learned a part of their own lives, what would it be? That's a really good question. I think that there are two, three periods of time that I think really encapsulate America in all of its complexity and all of its imperfection and in all of its beauty and possibility. And I think that those three moments are the American Revolution, you know, in 1776, the 1850s and 60s and all the events surrounding the Civil War and the aftermath of the Civil War, and then the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement and the hope for progress being, and the hope for President Johnson's great society coming and colliding with the devastation and tragedy of the Vietnam War. I think that those three eras really capture us at our best and our worst, both our sins and our virtues in this glorious mess that is our country.

And I would say that those are the three eras of history that excite me the most, that frustrate me the most, and that I keep sort of going back to, that I have this insatiable thirst for more. And sometimes as I dig in deeper and deeper, my frustration grows, but then very often hope finds its way to the surface as well. So I would say that those are the three. I couldn't boil it down to one. I wish I could, but I can't. All right.

The year is 2065. And you're tapped to write, I don't know, the script for the new holographic audio podcast drama or whatever. We should copyright that.

It's going to be a historical fiction of the year 2019. What is it about? I have to say that I think it's about our president. I think that we are actually, my gut tells me that we are living in one of those pivotal decades and those pivotal moments like the 1960s, like the 1860s and like, you know, the 1770s. I, I just, I suspect that we are, and I suspect that the events surrounding the Trump presidency, both the culture that gave rise to sort of the Trump Republican party and the culture that gave rise to the opposition to the Trump Republican party. I just, I suspect that, that all of these things are going to continue to grow and continue

to collide and continue to be at odds with one another. And I do believe that culturally speaking, and I don't mean this in any sort of civil war sense or anything nefarious, but I think that culturally speaking and I don't mean this in any sort of civil war sense or anything nefarious but I think that culturally speaking that we are having a war for the soul of our country and I think that in 50 years when we look back on this this decade that historians will will want to know where we fell and where we sided on some of these really critical and important issues. I also think much like the 1960s, since you mentioned political parties earlier,

much like the 1960s and much like the 1860s, I think that we're going to see over the next 10 to 20 years, the fracturing of our political parties again, and the realignments of the ideologies that constitute what the parties are and what they stand for. I think we might even see the death of one or more of our parties and the birth of some new ones in the way that we saw the Whigs sort of morph and transform into the Republican Party. I think we may see that again. So I think that this story of our time is a story that it's the same story that's been told over and over and over again. It's the, you know, love versus fear and equality and inclusivity battling xenophobia and isolationism. And I think that as the world around us, just not to be so, you know, myopically focused on just America, as the world around us continues to evolve, America's place in that world is

obviously going to be very determined by which of those principles wins the day. Is that too political? Have I just outed myself as a commie lefty pinko? Perhaps. Okay. So this is a bit backwards in the sequence of these questions, but for everyone who has listened to this interview so far, let's have you pitch them 1865. Why should they listen? I think that people should listen to 1865 because history repeats itself. And I think that they will

find, the listener of the podcast will find, that as they listen, it will be as if they are journeying back in time and simultaneously journeying deeper into the present day. I think that the modern parallels are the real reason. And then all the history stuff aside, it's just a really great political thriller. It's ripe with drama and intrigue and chicanery and skullduggery and all sorts of political drama that really, you know, boils to a fever pitch in the 13th episode. And then the best part is, is if you make it all the way to the 13th episode, there is a two part sort of mini movie told from John Wilkes Booth's side of the story. And so there's a little there's a cherry on top of this if you make it all the way to the end. Now, this interview is actually pretty much the one-year anniversary of American History Tellers. Oh, wow. On January 3rd, 2018, we debuted

with a series on the Cold War. Since then, we've done- Congratulations, that's awesome. Thank you. I'm very, very happy and pleased to be here a year later and we show no signs of slowing. So we've done the Cold War. We've done Prohibition. We've done Age of Jackson.

We've done the Space Race. We've done History of Political Parties. We've done the Revolution. We've done the Space Race. We've done History of Political Parties. We've done the Revolution. We've done the Civil Rights Era. What series should we do next? I think that you should do a series on the Wild West, because I think that, you know, there's something about the spirit of our, the soul and spirit of our country that is, you know, so epitomized by that, that era and by that period of time. When I was a kid, I used to read books on all the gunslingers. There's a Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hillcock and so forth. And I, I really think that those stories are so quintessentially American. And I think that, you know, it's a, it's an aspect of American

history that sort of supersedes politics and even society and kind of gets at the core of what drove this country to become what it is today. And it also gets into so many of the complicated, you know, morally ambiguous areas of our history that I think are really ripe for exploration. So I would say do one on the Wild West, and I'll write it. Well, Stephen Walters, thank you so much for talking with me today. Congratulations on 1865. You too, Lindsay. We've come a long way on this one, and I'm so happy to have it out into the world.

Am I allowed to say one last thing? Sure. Okay, well, I just allowed to, can I, am I allowed to say one last thing? Sure. Okay. Well, I just wanted to, to thank you, uh, Lindsay, your, your work, both on the development side of, of bringing this project to life and making the scripts pop and making the story really work, but also in the post-production side, uh, your, your sound design and the, the soundscape, uh, both the composition and just the, the world that you're creating is just, it's stunning. And your work is incredible. And it's just been such a joy to collaborate with you.

Well, thank you. It's been a really fun project. And I'm so glad that we were able to bring this to the world together. Stephen Walters, thank you so much for talking to me today. Thank you so much for having me. That was my conversation with Stephen Walters, co-creator and writer of 1865, a new scripted podcast about Lincoln's assassination and the tumult that followed. You can listen to it now on Stitcher Premium. And for a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com slash 1865 and use promo code 1865. Thank you all for a great year of American History Tellers. We're taking a short two-week break, but we'll be back on January 23rd with a new series on the 1968 Democratic

National Convention and the explosive court case that followed the trial of the Chicago Eight. In the meantime, catch up on our other series if you haven't listened to them already. You can subscribe to American History Tellers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Thank you. Please complete a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. That's wondery.com slash survey. You'll have an opportunity to tell us what you like about the show, what you'd love to hear in future episodes. And thank you.

American History Tellers is hosted, sound designed, and edited by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Our producers are Katie Long and Jenny Lauer. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis. Created by Hernán López for Wondery. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.